Evidence from 2022 supports Sacks’s prediction that there would be a political and economic correction away from what he called COVID “overreaction” policies, with the U.S. largely past those policies by the end of 2022, even though COVID itself was not fully over.

1. Economic correction of stimulus / monetary policy

• The major rounds of federal pandemic fiscal stimulus (CARES Act 2020, Consolidated Appropriations Act 2020, American Rescue Plan 2021) had all effectively ended by 2022; no comparable broad stimulus programs were renewed that year, despite continuing COVID circulation.
• The Federal Reserve pivoted sharply from ultra‑loose policy to aggressive tightening in 2022, raising the federal funds rate from near 0% in March 2022 to over 4% by December 2022—explicitly as a response to inflation partly attributed to prior stimulus and pandemic distortions, not to extend COVID-era support. (This is widely documented in Fed summaries and 2022 FOMC statements.)
• Pandemic emergency programs like enhanced unemployment benefits and broad stimulus checks were not restarted in 2022, indicating a clear policy correction from the earlier expansive response.

2. Rollback of restrictive COVID policies (lockdowns, school closures, broad mandates)

• By early 2022, U.S. schools were overwhelmingly open for in‑person learning; the 2021–22 school year saw a major shift back to normal operations, and full, long‑term school closures had largely ended, with only short-term or localized disruptions. (This is documented in reports from the U.S. Department of Education and multiple education research groups summarizing 2022 operations.)
• Lockdown-style stay-at-home orders and business-closure mandates were not in force across the U.S. in late 2022. Most states had already lifted such orders in 2020–2021 and did not bring them back in 2022, even during later COVID waves.
• Mask and vaccine mandates were rolled back through 2022. The CDC dropped its universal indoor masking recommendation for most of the country in February 2022 with its new “community levels” guidance, after which many states and cities ended indoor mask mandates, including in schools and businesses, and they were not broadly re‑imposed by year‑end 2022.

3. COVID not over, but response normalized

• Throughout 2022, COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continued in waves (e.g., Omicron BA.2, BA.5, and later variants), and booster campaigns continued. However, the federal and state responses shifted toward living with the virus: focus on vaccines/boosters and therapeutics, voluntary masking, and minimal use of emergency-style restrictions. This is consistent with Sacks’s framing that “we may not be completely past Covid, but … past this sort of overreaction to Covid.”

Assessment vs. the prediction

• He forecast “a further correction both political and economic in 2022” and that by then the U.S. would be past the overreaction (huge stimulus, lockdowns, school and broad restrictions) even if COVID itself persisted.
• By the end of 2022:
  • Large-scale fiscal stimulus had ended and monetary policy had not only normalized but reversed hard.
  • Lockdowns and broad school closures were gone, and national guidance and state policies had moved away from stringent restrictions.
  • COVID was still present, but treated more as an endemic risk with far lighter, more targeted policies.

Given these facts, Sacks’s prediction matches the observed political and economic trajectory in 2022, so the prediction is right.